At the halfway point there was no clear separation, Tsubone competing confidently despite the mountain she would have to climb to win the gold. Abe chose to put light between them at that point and attacked with a turbo-speed o-soto-gari which earned her a yuko and some breathing space. Despite pressure from her opponent rising, Abe held her nerve and her score and was buoyant to win the gold medal at home.

In the first bronze medal contest, Larissa Pimenta (BRA) took on Kokoro Fujishiro (JPN) and the home crowd and it was very tough for her indeed. She went down by a yuko to a slow tomoe-nage but with a positive mindset immediately tried to recover. It wasn’t enough though and just heading into the last minute, Fujishiro turned and held Pimenta with an unorthodox kami-shiho-gatame.

Ariane Toro Soler (ESP) and Kisumi Omori (JPN) fought for the second bronze medal and it was a much closer affair. Attacks came from both but neither could finish them to earn a score. As the bell rang and they moved into extra time, Toro Soler found herself one penalty in arrears, two to one, piling on the pressure, but she handled the situation beautifully, employing a low side sacrifice technique and the video review process showed a yuko was earned. This bronze medal was heading to Spain.